Notre Dame hosts business students from top-ranked Chinese university

The University of Notre Dame expanded its reach in global education with the arrival of 35 students from Tsinghua University, a top-ranked school located in Beijing.

The students, who arrived on campus Saturday (Jan. 24), are part of the PBC School of Finance at Tsinghua University. During the intensive two-week program offered by the Mendoza College of Business in coordination with Notre Dame International, the students will gain insights into American business practices and capitalism. Classes, taught by Notre Dame faculty, will cover topics ranging from the U.S. financial system and the American political system to entrepreneurship and corporate finance.

The Tsinghua students also will have an opportunity to experience American culture through attending sporting events, visiting an outlet mall and touring Chicago, among other activities.

“Our partnership with Tsinghua provides a great opportunity to mutually expand our understanding of each other’s culture and business knowledge,” said Roger D. Huang, Martin J. Gillen Dean of the Mendoza College of Business, who visited Tsinghua in March 2013. “As we all know, business is global. As a college of business, it’s a vital part of our mission to not only educate our students to understand this perspective, but also to facilitate the sharing of knowledge with students from other countries.”

Tsinghua University is one of the top two universities in China and is currently ranked No. 49 worldwide by Times Higher Education. Tsinghua hosts Notre Dame’s summer engineering and business programs, as well as ND-IBM China research interns. Its president emeritus, Gu Binglin, was a postdoctoral student at Notre Dame in the 1980s and received an honorary doctorate in May 2013.

Jonathan Noble, NDI’s assistant provost for internationalization and director of Notre Dame’s Beijing Global Gateway, facilitated the agreement and has fostered the growing relationship between the universities for a number of years. “The Beijing Global Gateway continues to develop a portfolio of academic programs in China in partnership with important universities like Tsinghua,” Noble said. “These programs aim to enhance opportunities for academic exchange and mutual understanding for Notre Dame students in China, as well as for Tsinghua students on the Notre Dame campus — and with the Notre Dame community.”